William Henry Hudson

William Henry Hudson known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson  was an Anglo-Argentine author, naturalist and ornithologist.

Hudson was the son of Daniel Hudson and his wife Catherine (née Kemble), United States settlers of English and Irish origin. He was born and lived his first years in an small estancia called "25 Ombues" in what is now Ingeniero Allan, Florencio Varela, Argentina.

In 1846 the family established a pulpería further south, in the surroundings of Chascomús, not far from the lake of the same name. In this natural environment, Hudson spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna and observing both natural and human dramas on what was then a lawless frontier, while publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He had a special love for Patagonia.

Hudson emigrated to England in 1874, taking up residence at St Luke's Road in Bayswater, where he continued to live for most of his life; in 1876 he married his landlady, the former singer Emily Wingrave, in Kensington, London. She was his senior by some years (sources differ). He supported himself as a writer and journalist; the couple had no children. Hudson himself obtained British citizenship on 4 July 1900.

Hudson died in Kensington in 1922, and was buried in Broadwater and Worthing Cemetery, Worthing on 22 August 1922, next to his wife who had died early in 1921.

Hudson was a friend of the late-19th century English author George Gissing, whom he met in 1889. They corresponded up until the latter's death in 1903, occasionally exchanging their publications, discussing literary and scientific matters and commenting on their respective access to books and newspapers, a matter of supreme importance to Gissing.

After his wife became an invalid and moved, in 1911, to Worthing in Sussex, England, Hudson lived apart from his wife "for reasons of his own health", though it is clear from their abundant surviving correspondence that Hudson visited her frequently, and they remained on affectionate terms.

He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology and British Birds and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Days  Afoot in England and A Shepherd's Life which helped foster the back-to-nature movement of the 1920s and 1930s and was set in Wiltshire.

Hudson's best-known novel is Green Mansions ,and his best-known non-fiction is Far Away and Long Ago which was made into a film.

In Argentina, Hudson is considered to belong to the national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. A town in Berazategui Partido and several other public places and institutions are named after him. The town of Hudson in Buenos Aires Province is named for him.